Effectiveness of sealing active proximal caries lesions with an adhesive system: 1-year clinical evaluation

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a therapeutic sealant to arrest non-cavitated proximal carious lesion progression. The study population comprised 44 adolescents who had bitewing radiographs taken for caries diagnosis. Non-cavitated lesions extending up to half of dentin thickness were included in the sample. In the experimental group (n = 33), the proximal caries-lesion surfaces were sealed with an adhesive (OptiBond Solo, Kerr) after tooth separation. The control group (n = 11) received no treatment, except for oral hygiene instructions including use of dental floss. Follow-up radiographs were taken after one year and were analyzed in comparison with baseline radiographs. In a blind study setting, visual readings were performed by two examiners, blinded to whether the examined radiograph was baseline or follow-up, and whether it concerned a test or control lesion. The efficacy of sealing treatment was evaluated by the McNemar test (0.05). About 22% of the sealed lesions showed reduction, 61% showed no change and 16% showed progression. For the control lesions, the corresponding values were 27%, 36% and 36% respectively. The number of lesions that showed reduction and no changes were merged and therefore 83.3% of the sealed lesions and 63.6% of the control lesions were considered clinically successful. No statistical significance was detected (p > 0.05). In the course of 1 year, sealing proximal caries lesions was not shown to be superior to lesion monitoring.

Tridimensional surface roughness analysis after resin infiltration of (deproteinized) natural subsurface carious lesions

“…Hence, lesion progression and cavitation by strengthening the remaining enamel structures should be hampered [1,3]; recent clinical studies corroborated this concept with dental adhesives [4][5][6][7] and revealed that the resin infiltrant's capability to stop the progress of early carious lesions ranged from some 70 % with deciduous molars after 1 year [8] and with young permanent teeth after 3 years [9] up to approximately 90 % of the cases after 1 [10,11] and after 3 years [12], respectively. A clear advantage of this therapeutic regimen is that no sealant margins are produced on the tooth surface [1][2][3].…”

How to intervene in the caries process: proximal caries in adolescents and adults—a systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The systematic review and meta-analysis by Ammari et al [35] was based on ten studies (401 participants, split-mouth design), performed in primary and permanent dentition. From the included studies, seven were concluded studies [13,30,31,[40][41][42][43] and the others were ongoing studies with partial [44,45] or follow-up results [46] of already published studies [14,47]. Four of the studies were selected for a meta-analysis due to their low risk of bias.…”

Evidence-based strategies for the minimally invasive treatment of carious lesions: Review of the literature

“…11 Unlike occlusal lesions, it is not possible to conclude that sealing or infiltrating proximal lesions is superior to controlling lesions by stabilizing the oral ecosystem with good hygiene, dietary control and appropriate fluoride use. 28 Caries lesions may be treated using resin or glass ionomer (GI) sealants. It is uncertain whether one type of sealant performs better than the other.…”